Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/503



Rh found to be no more treasure in the mines. The heterogeneous elements scatter, and the town, be it never so well built, is left as desolate as Tadmor of the Wilderness. In a certain Nevada mining town, which once, numbered some thousands of inhabitants, Indians are living in rows of good brick houses, having adapted them to their peculiar conditions by taking out doors and windows and knocking holes in the roof. A six-horse Concord coach carried us, not too speedily, over the twenty-five miles of dusty road to Tombstone. It was called the "Grand Central," after one of the prosperous silver mines of the place. A rival line was named the "Sandy Bob," from its proprietor, who preferred to be himself thus known, instead of by a conventional family appellation such as anybody might have. We should certainly have taken the "Sandy Bob Line" for its greater suggestiveness, except that it seemed to be coming down when we wanted to go up, and always coming up when we wanted to go down.

Our own proved to have plenty of suggestiveness too. A guard got up with a Winchester rifle, and posted himself by the Wells-Fargo Express box, and the driver began almost at once to relate robber stories. His stage had been stopped and "gone through" twice within the past six-months. The affair had been enlivened on the one occasion by a runaway and turnover, and on the other by the shooting and killing of the driver. Of this last item his successor spoke with a natural disgust. If the line could not be drawn at drivers, he said, things had indeed come to a pretty pass. He respected a man who took to the road and robbed those who could afford it. At least, he considered it more honorable than borrowing money of a friend which you knew you could never repay, or than gobbling up the earnings of the